In few other circumstances would an audience find itself being asked to follow the logic of a story that unites The Bible and The Hobbit.

In an Eddie Izzard show, this is entirely normal comic territory.

And it’s a literature mash up that, by the close of his latest Force Majeure show, gets a whole lot more complicated with everyone from Cleopatra to Darth Vader, God and Izzard’s longest standing imaginary friend Steve getting a line in the final skit.

It has, of course, always been Eddie’s way to bumble his way into a surrealist grand finale that gathers together the crazy characters that occupy the show’s entire gag reel. Izzard’s comic skill has never really had anything to do with timing; instead he relies on a childlike charm that transports us all back to the experience of telling fantastical half truths in the playground.

His latest show – impressively, Izzard is 51 with 30 years in the business and still afforded arena residencies – is loosely based on gods and monsters.

Both, argues Izzard, being ludicrous.

But if there’s something lacking in Izzard’s shows these days it’s control.

His whimsical delivery has always been his tool, but even the utter nonsense felt controlled, like it was gently lifting you towards a bit of a laugh. These days, it rarely crescendos, only a trip back to the Death Star canteen – a joke revived from his Circle tour 13 years ago – genuinely peaks when it should.

As a physical comic, though, he’s still a master: be that when he’s pretending to be an unfit lion, a dressage performing horse, or a destructive kraken.

The clock may be ticking on his time left in comedy as Izzard abandons it for politics, but he still has a few years left to prove why he was the man who got comedy into arenas in the first place.